Saturday, June 26, 2010

Timothy Williams and Durad Adnan (New York Times) report a Falluja "rampage" in which 12 jewelry stores were robbed by at least 20 unknown assailants and four owners being killed. Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) adds, "The gunmen managed to flee the place and police patrols found the car that the gunmen used parking and booby trapped with explosives. Police detonated the car bomb and launched searching operations in Al Jumhuriya neighborhood in the center of Fallujah city." Reuters notes a Mosul roadside bombing which claimed the life of 1 police officer and left five more injured and, dropping back to Friday, an Abu Ghraib car bombing which injured two people.

Meanwhile for the New York Times' Sunday "Week In Review" section, Anthony Shadid contribues an essay entitled "In Iraq, Divvying Up the Spoils of Political War." The essay exists as an example of why Shadid became a bit of a name and why he's long ago hit a glass wall. His ability to obtain a telling quote from an official, his ability to mesh it all into a narrative compete with his refusal to see a full picture and to force things to fit when they do not, in fact, fit:

The United States was always simplistic in seeing Iraq, before the invasion, through the lens of sect and ethnicity. In that, it found like minds in members of Iraq’s formerly exiled opposition, which largely operated according to the same calculus. Mr. Bremer relied inordinately on them to choose the Governing Council, and they demanded numbers commensurate with what they saw as their demographic weight. Sect and ethnicity was thus a key determinant of who was chosen. In the end, with those decisions, the United States, aided by the exiles, helped bring to post-invasion reality its own pre-invasion preconceptions. "I honestly believe that we all share responsibility," said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, one of the members of the body. He blamed Saddam Hussein's withering oppression of Shiites and Kurds for forcing the once-exiled opposition to coalesce the way it did; indeed, Mr. Hussein did much to reinforce Iraq’s divisions. But, Mr. Rubaie added, "I think we fell into a trap." In words at least, politicians have pledged to end the system of muhasisa, or quotas. The promise was a mainstay of the election campaign. ("Either quotas and corruption, or water, electricity and jobs," one poster read.) Many politicians lament its emergence as the political arithmetic, even as they work strenuously to reinforce it.

First off, it's laughable that Paul Bremer is still the focal point for the Bush policy. Is the Times to afraid to call out the Bush strategy that Bremer executed? That should probably read: Still too afraid. I'm not fan of Paul Bremer and criticized him in real time when he was in Iraq and have criticized him since but I don't use him as cover to avoid criticizing his boss.

Second, the thrust is: Quotas bad. We fix quotas, we fix all.

Again, the pieces just don't fit together. Shadid is aware, isn't he, that Iraq 'addressed' quotes before the March 7th election?

He's aware, isn't he, that quotas was one of the hold ups for passage of the election law?

So he should be aware that quotas were reduced. Which group suffered?

No group mentioned in his article.

He wants to focus on Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. (Oh my.) Their quotas really weren't messed with. The refugees were messed with -- external refugees. And some would argue that the external refugees include a large number of Sunnis; however, the more important and telling grouping might be that the external refugees include a lot of Iraqi Christians.

And there is where the target was. That's who got targeted, the religious minorities. They were targeted as refugees and they were targeted within the country. That's who got 'dealt with' in the election law, that's who had their representation reduced.

So if you're going to talk about Iraqi society and you're going to explore the issue of quotas, you need to deal with facts and not build your story around claims. Shadid builds his essay around claims. Claims of what might have been, of what could be and blah blah blah. His sources don't know what's going to happen and don't know what would happen if reductions in, say, Kurdish representation in Parliament took place.

But if he really wanted to write on this topic, all he had to do was to explore what's happened to members of Iraq's religious community. It's not pie in the sky for them, it's not abstract, it's not potential, it's not gas bagging. It has already happened to them, what Shadid's writing about has already taken place for them. But what happened to them doesn't fit his argument so he ignores them. An argument could be made that Shadid's attempting to look where Iraq could be. Looking for where it could be does not excuse ignoring where it currently is.

The strongest section of the essay is the ending, where Shadid quotes former US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker. I always feel like the meanest person in the world for beating up on Anthony Shadid (someone who you could argue could drown in all the praise he's earned) but if you want to write about quota reductions or eliminations, you need to include what happened on that very topic. Again, this was the big issue that delayed the election law. This was a major issue in October and November and the March 7th ballot reflected that outcome. You want to push a thesis on quotas, you better have some supporting evidence of some form.

We'll close by noting the following:

Tomorrow - Sunday, June 27, 2010 - Senator Levin will appear on CBS's Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.

Face the Nation airs at different times on different stations, so check your local listings for the time and channel in your area.

Senator Levin had a very busy week including chairing the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on PTSD, TBI and military suicides as well as chairing a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the nomination of Gen Ray Odierno (currently the top US commander in Iraq) for the post of Commander, US Join Forces Command and of Lt Gen Lloyd Austin for Odierno's current position.

Almost a fifth of Iraq's population are refugees or internally displaced, and almost half live in abject poverty - despite $53 billion in "aid" spent since the 2003 invasion (funds that lined the pockets of foreign military contractors and corrupt officials but left 70 percent of Iraqis without potable water or predictable electricity). A once secular, highly educated and cosmopolitan society has been torn apart by sectarian violence. Extremist militias, empowered by the post-invasion power vacuum, still terrorize women, gays and religious minorities. Few can afford to flee their country, which is racked by ongoing insecurity and ruled by a puppet regime (although whether Iran or America pulls the strings is a matter of some debate) from behind the walls of the green zone.Yet the stories of the people of Iraq are virtually absent in mainstream media reports. The ongoing humanitarian disaster is ignored while invasion apologists promote a corrupt pseudo-democracy as a perverse example of "mission accomplished." I have been visiting Baghdad since 1997, and most Iraqis seem as cynical about the new regime as they were about the old one. With Iraq now ranked the fifth most corrupt country out of 180 studied by Transparency International, and with no laws on campaign financing, with incumbents who used state funds to further their own campaigns and imprisoned opponents on trumped-up charges of terrorism and with government ministers maintaining their own private militias, democracy remains as elusive as ever.

The above is from Hadani Ditmars' "Mission accomplished? Not for the Iraqi people" (San Francisco Chronicle) and sad but true. The Iraqi people are completely forgotten. I seem to remember people grandstanding on the backs of Iraqis a few years ago. In fact, I remember a January 2007 DC rally with a lot of names on that stage and a lot of promising they were there, they were committed. Where have you gone Sue Sarandon? An apathetic nation turns it normal sized eyes to your own bug ones.

The Iraq War has not ended and the fact that so many faux activists think that they can pack it in because Barry O's not concerned with it (certainly concerned with ending it) is rather telling.

I remember Tom Hayden also grandstanding on the backs of the Iraqi people. What was needed, he told fellow grand stander Laura Flanders, was for US communities to form ties with Iraqi communities. (As soon as Tom was gone, backstabbing Laura would ridicule him as suggesting that US citizens become pen pals with al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.)

I didn't dream it, it happened. But apparently it was all empty words. Meaningless words. Not unlike the many words uttered by their Christ-child Barack. They loved him so much because he was their mirror. He was as useless and bitchy and stupid as they are.

The Iraq War hasn't ended. The suffering of the Iraqi people has not ended. For all the faux pretense of caring, the reality is most of the grandstanders against the illegal war didn't give a damn. For them it really was all about George W. Bush.

It wasn't about an illegal war because the illegal war continues. If an illegal war bothered them so much from 2003 until the end of 2008, it would damn well still bother them today.

It was all a bunch of crap and disgusting b.s. from a bunch of Democratic Party loyalists and a bunch of Closet Communist who thought they could be a fifth column in a Barack administration. In fact, Closet Communists make the best sex slaves for The Cult of St. Barack because they're used to toeing an ever-changing party line and never questioning it. As Barack becomes the national and international disappointment that any thinking adult knew he would be, it's cute to watch the Closet cases start insisting they were never really into Barack.

Take the laughable Carl Davidson, the 'progressive' for Barack. Carl's not interested in the wars anymore. Carl is interested in letting people know he ALWAYS knew Barack wasn't all of that. Did he always know that?

Of course not. But again, as a lifelong Communist, Carl used to doing whatever's he's told. The USSR likes China? Carl's on board! The USSR no longer likes China? Carl's on board!

Carl's a joke.

An even bigger joke is the woman who's about to die in disgrace. She only has a little time left and her doctors don't think she'll live past this year. So she's trying to set herself up now -- NOW -- as a Barack critic. This after endorsing him in 2008. The Communist who couldn't think of a damn reason to endorse him other than 'kids like him.'

Kids do?

Oh, okay. Well kids like eating sugar all day too so let's do that. Can we endorse that too? Can we just surrender all levels of maturity, experience and judgment and go along with whatever it is that 'kids' like at the moment?

She's going to die in disgrace.

And I won't feel the least bit of sympathy for her because she betrayed everything her life supposedly stood for when she endorsed Barack in 2008 and, as a Communist, she damn well should have been aware that her 'reasons' for endorsing him were dubious at best.

The Iraq War continues. Look around. See who still gives a damn.

That tells you who to trust and who not to. All the people who claimed they wanted to end the war? Only a few of them remain. For many, it had nothing to do with the war, it had everything to do with a Republican occupying the White House.

Washington-- In an effort to bring greater attention to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the United States Senate last night passed a resolution authored by Senator Kent Conrad designating June 27 as National PTSD Awareness Day.

"The stress of war can take a toll on one's heart, mind and soul. While these wounds may be less visible than others, they are no less real," Senator Conrad said. "All too many of our service men and women are returning from battle with PTSD symptoms like anxiety, anger, and depression. More must be done to educate our troops, veterans, families and communities about this illness and the resources and treatments available to them."

The Senator developed the idea for a National PTSD Awareness Day after learning of the efforts of North Dakota National Guardsmen to draw attention to PTSD and pay tribute to Staff Sgt. Joe Biel, a friend and member of the 164th Engineer Combat Battalion. Biel suffered from PTSD and took his life in April 2007 after returning to North Dakota following his second tour in Iraq.

Earlier this month, Senator Conrad visited the Fargo VA Medical Center and met with physicians and social workers to discuss their capabilities for helping those suffering from PTSD. He also met with friends of Sgt. Biel and presented them a copy of the resolution designating June 27 -- Biel's birthday -- as National PTSD Awareness Day.

According to the National Institute for Mental Health, PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. Traumatic events that may trigger PTSD include violent personal assaults, accidents, and military combat. From 2000 to 2009, approximately 76,000 Department of Defense patients were diagnosed with PTSD.

"This effort is about awareness, assuring our troops -- past and present -- that it's okay to come forward and say they need help. We want to erase any stigma associated with PTSD. Our troops need to know it's a sign of strength, not weakness, to seek assistance," Senator Conrad said.

To learn more about PTSD and locate facilities offering assistance, visit the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' National Center for PTSD at http://www.ptsd.va.gov.

Veterans in need of immediate assistance can call the VHA Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 and press 1.

The following community sites -- have updated since yesterday morning:

Back in the day, you didn't need to write letters to get Tony's attention. Even when everybody in town knew the feds were breathing on his neck, you didn't have to write on eco-friendly paper asking him to help you with your dream house. All you had to say was, "My man." And he was there.

Then he got indicted, and you donated all of Tony's campaign contributions to charity. But did you ever think about giving it back to Tony? He could sure use the money.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Friday, June 25, 2010. Chaos and violence continue, a mass grave is discovered in Iraq, Chris Hill is shown the door (in part, because he'd be unable to otherwise find it), Sunday is PTSD Awareness Day, the Green Zone loses a few perks, corruption gets some press and more.

Washington-- In an effort to bring greater attention to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the United States Senate last night passed a resolution authored by Senator Kent Conrad designating June 27 as National PTSD Awareness Day.

"The stress of war can take a toll on one's heart, mind and soul. While these wounds may be less visible than others, they are no less real," Senator Conrad said. "All too many of our service men and women are returning from battle with PTSD symptoms like anxiety, anger, and depression. More must be done to educate our troops, veterans, families and communities about this illness and the resources and treatments available to them."

The Senator developed the idea for a National PTSD Awareness Day after learning of the efforts of North Dakota National Guardsmen to draw attention to PTSD and pay tribute to Staff Sgt. Joe Biel, a friend and member of the 164th Engineer Combat Battalion. Biel suffered from PTSD and took his life in April 2007 after returning to North Dakota following his second tour in Iraq.

Earlier this month, Senator Conrad visited the Fargo VA Medical Center and met with physicians and social workers to discuss their capabilities for helping those suffering from PTSD. He also met with friends of Sgt. Biel and presented them a copy of the resolution designating June 27 -- Biel's birthday -- as National PTSD Awareness Day.

According to the National Institute for Mental Health, PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. Traumatic events that may trigger PTSD include violent personal assaults, accidents, and military combat. From 2000 to 2009, approximately 76,000 Department of Defense patients were diagnosed with PTSD.

"This effort is about awareness, assuring our troops -- past and present -- that it's okay to come forward and say they need help. We want to erase any stigma associated with PTSD. Our troops need to know it's a sign of strength, not weakness, to seek assistance," Senator Conrad said.

To learn more about PTSD and locate facilities offering assistance, visit the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' National Center for PTSD at http://www.ptsd.va.gov.

Veterans in need of immediate assistance can call the VHA Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 and press 1.

That is this Sunday, June 27th. Toady, on The Diane Rehm Show (NPR), second hour, the caller did what the host and guests couldn't: Raise the issue of Iraq. Henry from Florida was the only one aware that Iraq was the locale of an ongoing war. Others were aware of it as a 'fixed' reference point for Afghanistan.

Henry: Yes, thank you for taking my call. I have a simple question. Did George [W.] Bush not ask his generals when we would be getting out of these stupid wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or did the generals not ask him, "Sir, when will we be getting out of this war that you started?" Because essentially that Republicans find it okay for us to be spending whole millions and billions on this war but it's not okay with them to spend on our poor people in this country.

Diane Rehm: Lots of folks have raised those kinds of issues.

Elise Labot: Well Henry raises an issue that's felt about a lot of Americans around the world about how much money we're spending on wars in Iraq, in Afghanistan. We look at the world economy. A lot of the US economy is in the toilet and we're continuing to spend on both these wars. However, both President Bush and President Obama spent many weeks and months talking with the generals about how to win the strategy in Iraq, in Afghanistan. The problem is that these wars might not be winnable. The US can leave the situation in a better place than it found it but maybe not win.

That was Elise Labot from CNN. That was all that was worth hearing. And sometimes, when it's pointed out how pathetic it is that Iraq's not covered on Diane's show, a little whiner will show up in the e-mails. (Friends with that show know not to. I'm not in the mood for this show right now.) And it will be, boo hoo, they have so many topics and they're winging it and blah blah blah. Since the Idiot Kevin Whitelaw outed Diane today, let me as well. On air, he says, "I forgot what you wanted me to say, Diane," in reference to what he was supposed to say. Diane curtly called on Moises Naim to take over. Point? That show's worked out in advance. Only real surprises are the calls -- and they generally know what the call's about before it goes on air (though some callers don't stick to the topic they say they're calling in about). Here's reality on how the show works on Fridays. Diane divies up topics and the guests begin searching (the web) for the topic. Then they speak into the mike on air and act like they did something wonderful. Ask any guest -- ask Roy Gutman -- and they'll tell you that's how it goes. Diane determines the topics ahead of time, assigns aspects of the topics ahead of time, and then the 'non-scripted' conversation takes place. And if you missed it Sunday, read "Only 30% of Diane Rehm's guests are women (Ava and C.I.)." And any whine Diane freaks, grasp that while Iraq was not a topic during the international news hour, Diane WASTED the international news hour with approximately seven minutes of talk about tennis. Apparently, Diane is hoping to move to ESPN in her tarnished years. No time for Iraq. 7 US service members have died there so far this month but Diane's not interested. Tennis? She's mad for it. It's all about priorities.

Priorities was the question. And isn't it curious that no one -- not the host, not her guests -- while talking about the money spent on the wars -- bothered to mention the numbers? Isn't that rather telling. Diane says a lot of people are talking about this. But apparently not on her show. Not even today. From Monday's snapshot:

Moving over to the finanical cost of war, at the start of this month, the Institute for Public Accuracy offered a dollar amount for the financial costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars: $1 trillion dollars. BBC notes that the costs for the UK government in fighting the two wars has surpassed the 20 billion pound mark -- which would be approximately 29.7 billion US dollars. They go on to note, "Critics questioned why the UK was spending so much on conflict when public finances were in a dire state." The US has spent much, much more than that but ask yourself when you ever heard the anchor of the ABC, CBS or NBC news note that anyone might wonder why, when the US' economy is "in a dire state," the government was spending so much money on war? Carl Ramey (North Carolina's Pilot) notes, "Amazing, isn't it? We can talk endlessly about the nation's debt crisis and rampant spending, but nary a word about two wars that are costing us more than $12 billion every single month, and whose cumulative costs, over the past eight years, have already surpassed $1 trillion."

One trillion dollars. The dollar amount that was ignored by Diane and company today.

At McClatchy's Inside Iraq, an Iraqi correspondent remembers Yasser Slaihee, "In June 2005 there was supposed to be a sovereign government on June 30, Yasser's birthday, but Yasser didn't live long enough to see the date changed to June 28, they deprived Yasser from a wish that didn't come true even after his death, off course I blame no one for it doesn't matter, the ceremony and the announcement was everything but true on the ground." Yaseer was shot dead by a US sniper June 24, 2005. NPR's Jacki Lyden noted of the journalist, "Yasser was hip: blue eyes, wire rims and a buzz cut, average height, endless smile. He invited me for coffee to meet his wife and baby daughter, and our coffee klatch never ended. When NPR producer Tom Bullock turned ashen, feverish and couldn't get out of bed, Yasser hooked him up to an IV bag hoisted on a camera tripod before he even told Tom who he was." In real time, Ron Brynaert (at Why Are We Back In Iraq) blogged about Yasser's death and, in the excerpt below, he's citing a report by McClatchy's Tom Lasseter:

Once again, the Pentagon initially lied about the murder of a journalist in Iraq.

"An early report said Salihee was shot by a passing U.S. convoy when he failed to heed hand signals or shouts from soldiers. That later turned out to be untrue."

But there are conflicting accounts.

"Most of the witnesses told another Knight Ridder Iraqi special correspondent that no warning shots were fired. But the front right tire of Salihee's car, a white Daewoo Espero, was pierced by a bullet, presumably meant to stop him from advancing."

FYI, Ron's now with Raw Story. Yesterday's violence included assaults on Sahwa with four members of one family kidnapped in a home invasion and later found dead. Lourdes Garcia-Navarro (NPR's All Things Considered) reported yesterday that the month of June has seen a minimum of 19 Sahwa killed. Sahwa, also known as "Awakenings" and "Sons Of Iraq" are largely Sunni fighters that the US put on the payroll to stop them from attacking US military equipment and US service members, numbered over 91,000 and Nouri al-Maliki agreed to take them and fold them into government jobs, putting them on the Iraqi payroll. That really didn't happen. Targeting has happened, repeatedly. These are Iraqi citizens. Nouri has an obligation to protect them. His refusal to do so goes to the fact that he's not a leader. He can't protect the people and he has refused to call out the killings. Doing so wouldn't violate his attempts to continue sectarian tensions. Nouri's caught in the past and Iraq will never be able to move forward with him as prime minister. Back to Lourdes Garcia-Navarro who reports:

Now, the exit of American troops is under way. In 2009, the fate of the Sons of Iraq was left in the hands of Iraq's Shiite-dominated coalition government, which agreed to pay the men and eventually either integrate them into the armed forces or give them civilian jobs. But scores have been arrested over the past year by the government, says Hussam, while others have fled the country, leaving a sense of bitterness among the remaining Sons of Iraq.

Turning to some of today's violence . . .

Bombings?

Reuters notes a Baghdad bombing injured an Iraqi military officer, a Mosul roadside bombing injured four people, a Muqdadiya roadside bombing injured two people, a Khaldiya suicide bomber took his own life (but no one else's) in Khaldiya and, dropping back to Thursday for the rest, a Baghdad sticky bombing injured five people, a Baghdad roadside bombing injured two people and a Baghdad roadside bombing injured four people. In addition, the Times of India reports, "A bomb on Friday damaged the perimeter wall of the Nabi Yunes mosque in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, revered by Christians as the burial place of the Biblical prophet Jonah, police said."

AFP reports a mass grave was discovered in Samarra today with 11 skeltons and they are thought to be from the ethnic cleansing of 2006 and 2007.

Timothy Williams and Duraid Adnan (New York Times) note some of the violence yesterday including the Sahwa attack and they note the demonstrations over lack of electricity (which they call "riots" -- a word choice/characterization I strongly disagree with). The National Turk reports that temperatures have gotten close to 120 degrees F and "Hussain al-Shahristani, the current electricity minister spoke of the shortages and said that there was no 'magic wand' to stop the outages on Friday as Iraqi protesters massed in the capital Baghdad over the government's inability to provide essential services in the war ridden country." al-Shahristani is the acting minister and he goes on to state Iraqis should "limit" their use of AC. Maybe he can work on "limiting" the number of 100-degree-plus days. The average Iraqis may get a little more electricity. AFP reports that al-Shahristani has just "revoked electricity privileges enjoyed by government officials as he took temporary control of the power portfolio amid public fury over rationing" -- something you would assume would have been dealt with long ago. Something that never really should have happened to begin with -- directing additional energy to the Green Zone. Nadeem Hami and Liz Sly (Los Angeles Times) add, "Until now, government officials who live in the fortified Green Zone and other specially guarded compounds for VIPs have enjoyed up to 24 hours of electricity a day, while ordinary Iraqis swelter in the heat with only 2-6 hours of power." Rania El Gamal, Muhanad Mohammed, Khalid al-Ansary, Matt Robinson, Raloph Boulton (Reuters) note, "The power protests have emboldened rivals of Maliki who hope to form a government with his mainly Shi'ite State of Law alliance but deny him a second term as prime minister. Talks will likely yet drag on for weeks, possibly months."

The forming of the new government? March 7th, Iraq concluded Parliamentary elections. Three months and two days later, still no government. 163 seats are needed to form the executive government (prime minister and council of ministers). When no single slate wins 163 seats (or possibly higher -- 163 is the number today but the Parliament added seats this election and, in four more years, they may add more which could increase the number of seats needed to form the executive government), power-sharing coalitions must be formed with other slates, parties and/or individual candidates. (Eight Parliament seats were awarded, for example, to minority candidates who represent various religious minorities in Iraq.) Ayad Allawi is the head of Iraqiya which won 91 seats in the Parliament making it the biggest seat holder. Second place went to State Of Law which Nouri al-Maliki, the current prime minister, heads. They won 89 seats. Nouri made a big show of lodging complaints and issuing allegations to distract and delay the certification of the initial results while he formed a power-sharing coalition with third place winner Iraqi National Alliance. Together, the two still lack four seats necessary (or so it is thought) to form the government. Jim Muir (BBC News) went to the British Embassy in Baghdad for a ceremony and:

As I flitted from one to another, I made a point of asking them all the same question: So who's going to be the next Iraqi prime minister?

Here we were, well over three months after general elections, and the amazing thing was, not a single person had a clear answer.

It wasn't as though they were trying to hide some secret to which they were privy.

James Franklin Jeffrey is a career member of the U.S. Foreign Service, grade of Career Minister. He began his current assignment as Ambassador to Turkey in November 2008. Ambassador Jeffrey has previously served in Washington as Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Near Eastern Bureau, and Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for Iraq. From 2004 to 2005, Mr. Jeffrey served in Baghdad as Deputy Chief of Mission and later Charge d'Affaires. His previous assignments have involved the Balkans, as Ambassador to Albania and Deputy Special Representative for Bosnia Implementation, and Deputy Chief of Mission in both Turkey and Kuwait. Ambassador Jeffrey earlier held a variety of assignments in Washington and abroad in the European and Near Eastern Bureaus, including postings in Munich, Adana, Ankara, Sofia, and Tunis. Ambassador Jeffrey served in the US Army as an infantry branch officer from 1969 to 1976, with service in Germany and Vietnam. He has a B.A. from Northeastern University and a M.S.B.A. from Boston University.

Jeffrey's in. And, yes, Chris Hill's out -- as we've noted for two months now. The napping ambassador. At random, let's just pull up a snapshot. November 23, 2009:

At the White House today, a bunch of trained yammers (with few exceptions) stroked and fondled Robert Gibbs with questions of such easy nature as could he explain "diplomatic entertaining" and State dinners. They had plenty of time to make like In Style magazine but damn little time to make like actual reporters. It was the usual embarrassment everyone's come to expect and that can be blamed only partly on Robert Gibbs. Blame? Hillary mentioned Chris Hill, US Ambassador to Iraq, in her comments and this may have been the first time his name has come up in the last few days. For example, the New York Times' awful editorial last week didn't mention him when it called out Iraq for the delay. Shouldn't Hill have been on this issue from day one? Yes, he should have. And who picked Hill? Who picked Hill over qualified people -- many, many other qualified people? Barack Obama. So the candy ass White House press corps should have pressed on the issue of Iraq. Instead they wasted everyone's time and, with few exceptions, better hope their editors and producers don't study that transcript. And on Chris Hill, let's remember one more time that the Republicans in the Senate structured their objections to Hill very carefully and very precisely. They knew he could be the anchor that could hang around Barack's neck. But no one wanted to pay attention back then and now it appears it may be too late. If Iraq falls to pieces, Republicans running for office will not blame military generals. They will, however, go to town on a US civilian like Hill. And they laid the groundwork for that back in his confirmation hearing.

To clarify, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that day, was speaking at the US State Dept and AFP's Lachlan Carmichael asked her about Iraq. She wasn't speaking with Gibbs at the White House press briefing. But that was November. When Iraq had again missed a deadline for the election law. And that's what pushed the election back to much. It was actually supposed to be held at the end of 2009 but Nouri insisted he needed more time. So it got pushed back to January 2010. But there was no movement on the election laws necessary. This went on for months. With the United Nations publicly warning about these delays. And Chris Hill did nothing. He showed no leadership, he offered nothing. And the elections got pushed back two months (to March) and now the elections have been held and, almost four months later, still no prime minister. Remember the drawdown is going on right now and US forces in Iraq are supposed to drop to 50,000 by the end of August. It's July next week. Chris Hill did nothing.

Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) reports Iraqi officials feel the United States has all but forgotten Iraq and, "Iraqi officials cite instances that they say showed the Americans being caught by surprise: A veto by the country's Sunni vice president last fall delayed elections by two months, and an attempt by Shiite politician Ahmad Chalabi, once a U.S. favorite, to bar more than 500 candidates from running in parliamentary elections that reignited sectarian tensions." An Iraqi official goes on to praise Chris Hill for his work and state that it's not Hill ("bright man") but the White House which hasn't been doing the job. I'm no groupie or fan of Barack Obama but that's not why I included that in this. You better grasp what's being said and why. Hill's been doing -- and this is known, lower levels under him have reported this back to DC and to visiting State Dept staff -- what McCrystal was fired for: Bad mouthing his superiors. He's been doing that forever. And, again, check out that personnel file, he did in nearly every post. He blames his superiors for everything. He sucks up to whomever happens to be standing in front of him at the moment. If that's an Iraqi official who's unhappy (as many are), then it's time for Hill to agree (fine) and then go on to trash his bosses (not so fine).

Chris Hill is an idiot. Chris Hill was always an idiot. We covered the confirmation hearing and it was obvious then -- refer to the March 25, 2009 snapshot and the March 26th snapshot -- the hearing was the 25th, we spent two days on it. You can also refer to Third's "Chris Hill sings 'Much More'" (March 29, 2009). He's an idiot. He showed up for his confirmation hearing knowing nothing. He had food stains on his shirt, his hair was uncombed and this was when he was trying to make a good impression and get the job. See Isaiah's "The Pig-Pen Ambassador." Right now, as deals are being made to try to end the political stalemate, the Kurds are quite clear what they want from the horse trading: Kirkuk. They'd like it outright but they'll settle on the vote that the 2005 Constitution promised them (the vote Nouri never allowed). This is not a minor issue. Even now, it's not a minor issue. And if it were minor to everyone but the Kurds, Nouri (or Allawi or whomever) could tell the KRG, "Give me your bloc of votes and you've got Kirkuk." "Just an old fashioned land dispute," Hill dubbed Kirkuk in his Senate confirmation hearing -- oil-rich Kirkuk. He understood nothing. He had no background in the region. He didn't even have language skills. He never should have been nominated, let alone confirmed. And the alleged brain trust in the White House missed the boat completely, ignoring the Republican objection and what the really signified. From April 5, 2009:

The GOP senators were offering carefully worded questions, delivered very carefully. Why was that? That doesn't happen in most hearings. No one comes off rehearsed (mainly because few have the time to be). So what was going on there? Turns out, they were preparing for clips that they can air if Iraq goes straight to hell between now and the 2010 elections. Chris Hill is unqualified and has no MidEast experience. Iraq is among the most important diplomatic posts at this point due to the perception that violence is down (and some say gone -- it's not gone, it hasn't even ceased).

It is a good guess that Iraq will yet again slap the Operation Happy Talkers in the face and this time the GOP's the one prepared to benefit from such an event. They're going to attack if that happens (I think it will happen) and they're not MoveOn. Meaning? They're not attacking Ray Odierno. They're going to point to Chris Hill. They're going to point to his ambassadorship. They also know that the 2007 benchmarks were never met. Three years later and they're not met. The GOP line of attack is going to be: "Hill had the progress that Peteraues and Crocker built and created and he wasted it. He is completely unqualified and we raised these issues when he appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee." (I don't know Sam Brownback and I have been told his objection is very real to Hill's appointment. I'm not stating or inferring he participated in political theater. I am saying that those Republicans on the committee did.)

I think Hill's going to be confirmed. I believe he's unqualified for the post and, based on Iraq events since the start of the illegal war, Iraq will be the same quagmire where nothing is accomplished. The GOP's going to hang that on Hill.

[. . .]

The administration has no clue what a huge mistake they're making. The Republicans are not going to stick with Iraq forever. We've noted that here in 2007 and 2008. But by naming someone with no MidEast experience as ambassador to that country, the Democratic administration just gave the Republican Party their out on Iraq. It becomes, "We supported it. We supported the work Crocker and Petraeus did. And we stood firm and managed to get the violence down. And then President Obama appointed someone completely unqualified and all the progress vanished." That will be the argument and that will be how Republicans begin walking away from the Iraq War which is now Barack Obama's. And if the GOP plays this well, it takes the only card that Dems have had for the last few election cycles: That they're right on Iraq and the Republicans are wrong.

Doubt that's possible? Spencer Kornhaber (OC Weekly) reports today on claims made by (Ret) Judge Andrew Napolitano states this week's Freedom Watch (Fox Business channel), which he hosts, features US House Rep Dana Rohrabacher (Republican) stating that (Napoloitano allegedly quoting Rohrabacher) "almost all Republicans in the House of Representatives now believe that the war in Iraq was a mistake, that it was unlawful, that it was immoral, that it wasn't worth the lives lost or the trillions that will be spent." Like Kornhaber, I don't know about the "unlawful" remark -- I consider the Iraq War to be an illegal war, I have not, however, heard any Republican member of Congress say that. I did hear the strategy to hang the Iraq War on Barack via Chris Hill from two Republican senators who stated back in April of 2009 that the Republican Party was going to walk away from the Iraq War and do so publicly on the grounds that Barack screwed it up. (The illegal war was screwed up from the beginning. That is not an excuse for Barack who screwed things up by continuing it. But it is noting that two parties share the blame for this illegal war.)

Laura Rozen (Politico) notes the announcement regarding Jeffrey but is too modest to note she broke the news of his appointment. (We noted Hill was on his way out. I did not know who was being brought in until Rozen's article broke. That was her scoop and she deserves credit for it. Even if she's too modest to grab it herself, she still deserves credit.)

MARCO WERMAN: I'm Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WBGH Boston. Human Rights Watch has found a disturbing trend in northern Iraq. In a report issued today, the rights group says a significant number of Kurdish women in the self-ruled region has undergone female genital mutilation. That's the name given to a medically risky and emotionally painful procedure, often performed on very young girls. It involves the removal of the clitoris and sometimes other genital parts. Human Rights Watch is now calling on Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq to ban the practice. Jessie Graham is with Human Rights Watch; she's also a former reporter for this program and in fact, did some reporting for us on female genital mutilation in northern Iraq. Jessie, how did Human Rights Watch come to the conclusion that so many women in the Kurdish region of Iraq have undergone FGM?

JESSIE GRAHAM: They interviewed women in villages in northern Iraq and actually have worked with an NGO that's been doing work on this for many years that's done some surveys and found that in some places it is almost every woman in a village will be subjected to this. The government itself has done some surveys and found numbers as high as 40% in one district and it's pretty clear that this is a very common practice.

WERMAN: One of the disturbing conclusions of the Human Rights Watch report is that for many girls in Iraqi Kurdistan, FGM is an unavoidable procedure, and we're talking often very young girls between the ages of three and twelve. Now you reported on FGM in northern Iraq for our program back in 2006. Is there a typical way that this occurs to a young girl? Does the mother take her to someone? Is a girl even warned beforehand what's going to happen?

GRAHAM: No, the girls aren't warned and the report is called "They Took Me and Told Me Nothing", which I think is very telling. What this report does is it really does tell that story of how unexpected, surprising and really harrowing this experience is for these little girls. Sometimes it's also adult women who are subjected to this. And in almost every case that we heard about, the women are taken to a relative's house or someone, a midwife, comes to the house, they are held down by a female relative and the woman that performs the cutting is using a razor blade. There's no anesthesia. They have to be very stoic because every woman in the community or many women in the community have gone through this procedure. And the understanding is that they have to go through it in order to get married, in order to serve food, in order to be a woman in the community.

Meanwhile, you can't have an illegal war without a lot of corruption. On that beat, David Beasley and William McQuillen (Bloomberg News) report that Public Warehousing Co (now Agility), which was supposed to be providing food and other services to the US military in Iraq (one the tax payer's dime) is allegedly still overbilling and Asst. US Attorney Barbara Nelan told the judge, "We feel very strongly and have evidence that the fraud has continued." AP reports Agility's attorney is stating that the charges are destroying his client's company. In addition, Guillermo Contreras (San Antonio Express) reports that US Army Capt Faustino L. Gonzales (a purchasing officer) "pleaded guilty Thursday to receiving $25,000 in bribes in exchange for awarding Iraq reconstruction contracts to a company that charged inflated prices."

Blackwater 61"Blackwater 61" is the call sign of a plane flown by the embattled government contractor Blackwater that crashed into a mountain in Afghanistan killing all onboard. The widow of one of the soldiers killed - a pilot herself - says the firm was negligent in the way it operated the flight. Steve Kroft reports. | Watch Video

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At McClatchy's Inside Iraq, an Iraqi correspondent remembers Yasser Slaihee, "In June 2005 there was supposed to be a sovereign government on June 30, Yasser's birthday, but Yasser didn't live long enough to see the date changed to June 28, they deprived Yasser from a wish that didn't come true even after his death, off course I blame no one for it doesn't matter, the ceremony and the announcement was everything but true on the ground." Yaseer was shot dead by a US sniper June 24, 2005. NPR's Jacki Lyden noted of the journalist, "Yasser was hip: blue eyes, wire rims and a buzz cut, average height, endless smile. He invited me for coffee to meet his wife and baby daughter, and our coffee klatch never ended. When NPR producer Tom Bullock turned ashen, feverish and couldn't get out of bed, Yasser hooked him up to an IV bag hoisted on a camera tripod before he even told Tom who he was." In real time, Ron Brynaert (at Why Are We Back In Iraq) blogged about Yasser's death and, in the excerpt below, he's citing a report by McClatchy's Tom Lasseter:

Once again, the Pentagon initially lied about the murder of a journalist in Iraq.

"An early report said Salihee was shot by a passing U.S. convoy when he failed to heed hand signals or shouts from soldiers. That later turned out to be untrue."

But there are conflicting accounts.

"Most of the witnesses told another Knight Ridder Iraqi special correspondent that no warning shots were fired. But the front right tire of Salihee's car, a white Daewoo Espero, was pierced by a bullet, presumably meant to stop him from advancing."

FYI, Ron's now with Raw Story. Yesterday's violence included assaults on Sahwa with four members of one family kidnapped in a home invasion and later found dead. Lourdes Garcia-Navarro (NPR's All Things Considered) reported yesterday that the month of June has seen a minimum of 19 Sahwa killed. Sahwa, also known as "Awakenings" and "Sons Of Iraq" are largely Sunni fighters that the US put on the payroll to stop them from attacking US military equipment and US service members, numbered over 91,000 and Nouri al-Maliki agreed to take them and fold them into government jobs, putting them on the Iraqi payroll. That really didn't happen. Targeting has happened, repeatedly. These are Iraqi citizens. Nouri has an obligation to protect them. His refusal to do so goes to the fact that he's not a leader. He can't protect the people and he has refused to call out the killings. Doing so wouldn't violate his attempts to continue sectarian tensions. Nouri's caught in the past and Iraq will never be able to move forward with him as prime minister. Back to Lourdes Garcia-Navarro who reports:

Now, the exit of American troops is under way. In 2009, the fate of the Sons of Iraq was left in the hands of Iraq's Shiite-dominated coalition government, which agreed to pay the men and eventually either integrate them into the armed forces or give them civilian jobs.But scores have been arrested over the past year by the government, says Hussam, while others have fled the country, leaving a sense of bitterness among the remaining Sons of Iraq.

Timothy Williams and Duraid Adnan (New York Times) note some of the violence yesterday including the Sahwa attack (they say 2 corpses were discovered and 2 are missing -- we're going with Xinhua which has better sources in the province and reported yesterday four corpses were discovered according to a police source). The reporters note:

Since Iraq's March 7 elections, which failed to provide a clear winner, unrest has increased during a hot spring and summer in which temperatures have reached 120 degrees, and the tense atmosphere has been punctuated by political assassinations, riots over electricity shortages, bombings of banks and a campaign of killing members of the counterinsurgent Awakening Councils and their families.Many of the recent attacks have occurred in Mosul, the capital of Nineveh Province.Blame for much of the violence -- including the electricity riots -- has been placed on groups seeking to exploit the country's political deadlock by sowing greater discord.

Really? Electricity riots? That's what we're calling them? Riots?

That's a curious characterization. One that, no doubt, pleases Nouri, but one that seems to be have exceeded its grasp. The demonstrations, the protests, were peaceful until police and military showed up. That was true of Basra on Saturday (no police officers died -- they did shoot protestors and kill two however). And true Monday of Monday's Nasiriyah protest. (There were at least two minor protests on Sunday. They were not riots.) I don't see a riot in the Nasiriyah photos such as below.

Again, when the police and military showed up things shifted a bit but the crowd can be seen as responding to intimidation and, even if you don't see that, it's still difficult to call what happened in Basra Saturday or Nasiriyah Monday a "riot." (And Monday saw one reported arrest -- of a police officer.)

The characterization isn't a minor issue. What took place, the protests, would not be characterized as "riots" if they took place in the US. And the only one who benefits from that terminology is Nouri al-Maliki. So it's a very strange characterization. This is probably a good time to again quote from Joel Brinkley's "Iraq reverting to its former freedom-less ways" (Sacramento Bee):

A large part of the problem is corruption. Under American stewardship, Iraq has grown to be one of the half-dozen most corrupt nations on earth. "Significant widespread corruption" afflicts "all levels of government," the State Department says. Nothing can so quickly cripple a democracy as the need by the nation's leaders to protect their cash flow and hide all evidence of their thefts. That leads, at least, to electoral fraud and press censorship. How can corrupt officials survive if the press is free to report on their misdeeds?"We are controlled and censored," Faris Fadhil Sultan told me. He's a reporter for Al-Arabiya television in Iraq. "The government can exert its will on reporters through criminal charges or suspension from work - even kidnapping and killing."Iraqi reporters are intimidated into compliance - even when Western journalists found that government officials had embezzled $13 billion in American reconstruction funds. That is a tactical problem for Iraqi democracy. A larger, strategic, problem lies in the certainty of history.

In that climate, do we really want to characterize peaceful protests as "riots"? Do we really want to characterize the suffering -- suffering in 100-degree-plus heat with no reliable electricity -- as rioters? The National Turk reports:

Iraqi's have been outraged by the electricity shortage which has left many areas in the country without electricity for much of the day amid temperatures reaching close to 50 degrees (120 Fahrenheit).Hussain al-Shahristani, the current electricity minister spoke of the shortages and said that there was no 'magic wand' to stop the outages on Friday as Iraqi protesters massed in the capital Baghdad over the government’s inability to provide essential services in the war ridden country.

al-Shahristani is the acting minister and he goes on to state Iraqis should "limit" their use of AC. Maybe he can work on "limiting" the number of 100-degree-plus days. The average Iraqis may get a little more electricity. AFP reports that al-Shahristani has just "revoked electricity privileges enjoyed by government officials as he took temporary control of the power portfolio amid public fury over rationing" -- something you would assume would have been dealt with long ago. Something that never really should have happened to begin with -- directing additional energy to the Green Zone.

Blackwater 61"Blackwater 61" is the call sign of a plane flown by the embattled government contractor Blackwater that crashed into a mountain in Afghanistan killing all onboard. The widow of one of the soldiers killed - a pilot herself - says the firm was negligent in the way it operated the flight. Steve Kroft reports. | Watch Video

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60 Minutes, Sunday, June 27, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Radio. Today on The Diane Rehm Show (airs on most NPR stations and streams live online beginning at 10:00 am EST), Diane is joined the first hour (domestic news roundup) by Ron Elving (NPR), John King (CNN) and Susan Page (USA Today) Naftali Bendavid (Wall St. Journal), Doyle McManus (Los Angeles Times) and Karen Tumulty (Washington Post). For the second hour (international), she's joined by Elise Labot (CNN), Moises Naim (El Pais) and Kevin Whitelaw (Congressional Quarterly).

E-mail issues quickly. Yesterday's snapshot notes a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing I wasn't present for and that I'd hope to go into it and might today using prepared statements (written statements for the record) and the input from friends present including a Congressional staffer. An e-mail asks about that and how often it happens? We've done it before I don't think it took place in 2009 but drop back to 2008 or 2007 and there should be some. When it does take place, I make it clear that I was not present (as I did yesterday) and that I'm relying on the statements and the observations of people present. If I am not present for the hearing, that's stated clearly. In 2006, we noted some Congressional hearings as favors -- some I wasn't present for -- on that basis and, when they were noted, it was made clear that I wasn't present. Related, but not asked in that e-mail, if I have to leave during a multi-panel hearing, I'm not covering a panel I didn't sit through. I also don't cover panels I sit through if I don't feel they're of value. That's generally the panels with government officials. I'm rarely interested in covering those because their testimony is always cleared ahead of time by their departments. Meaning, they are told what they can discuss and what they can't. Sometimes, we'll cover that fact because it does come up often -- usually when a member of Congress is frustrated with non-answers. But it's rare that the government witnesses are -- my opinion -- worth listening to.

Several community members -- and one visitor -- are noting an article and objecting to it. I share your objection. I believe 'pet issues' rendered that article worthless. Meaning that you don't bury peace or antiwar in a conference that deals with it. Meaning you have to be pretty stupid to mention antiwar and forget Iraq. But people have their 'pet issues' and those issues drive many, many people away. I would like to carry this over to Third because Elaine and I have spoken about this for weeks now and she's also repeatedly tried to pitch an idea at Third that would revolve around this issue. If it's not addressed at Third on Sunday, I'll tackle it here next week.

Lastly . . .

It's all of our birthdays this summerOne number olderAnother year youngerI'll go to your partyYou'll come to mineWe've given up cigarettesWe've given up wineWe've given up caffeineAnd sworn off dessertsI don't try to seduce youWe don't even flirtWe're too good to be happyToo straight to be sadSo just blow out the candlesHappy Birthday

Stay out of the oceanStay out of the sunStay in perfect shapeAnd be number oneWe've got brilliant excusesFor having no funSo just blow out the candlesHappy Birthday-- "Happy Birthday," written by Carly Simon, first appears on her Have You Seen Me Lately? album

Today's Carly's birthday. Happy birthday to a legend in her own time and one of the country's finest songwriters. If you haven't already checked out Carly's latest, Never Been Gone, there's another reason to. Kat gave it a rave and she also picked it as the best album of 2009.

About Me

We do not open attachments. Stop e-mailing them. Threats and abusive e-mail are not covered by any privacy rule. This isn't to the reporters at a certain paper (keep 'em coming, they are funny). This is for the likes of failed comics who think they can threaten via e-mails and then whine, "E-mails are supposed to be private." E-mail threats will be turned over to the FBI and they will be noted here with the names and anything I feel like quoting.
This also applies to anyone writing to complain about a friend of mine. That's not why the public account exists.